


The Journey Through Many Eyes

by TallowCat



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-24 14:47:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TallowCat/pseuds/TallowCat
Summary: Stories following characters throughout their journey, both the personal and general things that happen to them or within themselves.Aka i just wanna write about my ocs and u cant stop meAny needed warnings will be put at the beginning of the chapter.





	1. Chapter 1

When Joshua is young the other children are not quite kind. They tease him and pick on him, bully him into crying. He knows he’s not quite right and he knows he’s a runt, but that doesn’t make their hurtful words sting any less.  
He knows he still looks human when he should be more beastly now, the children younger than him already have horns and tails.  
He knows this but it doesn’t stop him crying to his mother when they pick on him for what feels like hours.

It’s this that makes his mother worry and baby him much more than another mother may. She keeps him close much longer, frets about more things. She loves her son but she doesn’t know how much of her husband's humanness is with her son.  
After all, humans are not made as sturdy as they are.

Joshua doesn’t speak as a child, he keeps to himself and his books. Curls up by the fire beside his parents and they all pretend that nothing is wrong. It is just the children, the adults treat the prince well, and his aunt is kind to him despite the fact she isn’t keen on humans.  
Everyone pretends the prince doesn’t hide away in cupboards to cry and nurse his bruises.

Joshua looks human because of his father. Oliver is very kind and gentle to his son, helps him as he can. And Joshua loves his father, very much so, but he knows his father doesn’t understand how he feels, not fully. They both understand the feeling of being an outsider, but the drastically different reasons are what separates them.

His mother hushes him on nights when he can’t hold in his feelings, when he gripes her robes and refuses to let go. And the adults pretend the Queen isn’t cradling her too small son in her arms like a young child.

Everything towers him, except his father. His race are a kind of incredibly height, of buildings that he can barely see the entire doorframe. They are a race larger than most anything else, and he is a runt among even the youngest of children.  
He is small in a place of things meant to be much larger.

There’s a day that he yells, swears, the say that he doesn’t let the kids who are bigger than him beat him up. The fire swirls around him – he’s still to young to be able to control magic of that ferocity – and the others run off in fear. The snow is melted beneath him, and the building he’d been backed upon scorched.  
He is not hurt that day, but he still goes home crying, seeking his mothers comfort.

He stands up for himself with snarls and swears. He clutches his tome tightly in sharp nailed hands. He acts as angry and scary as he can to scare them off. And he does, the ones who are mean to him go away, too scared that the prince would fight back in flames again if they poked him too much.  
It was not friendship but it was still better than what it had been before.

Really, he doesn’t particularly have friends. Yes the kingdom on the mountains is fairly tightknit and everyone is friendly, but Joshua struggles to find those his age that want to even talk to him. Some do, out of desire to know the prince, not the person. He grows up for a while with books and family as his only company on the blizzard covered mountain.

Joshua knows he’s a runt. And he fights back because of it, grows steadily angry and defensive of himself in every aspect. He grows to show aggression first, to scare people away from him so they won’t hurt him like the children of his past did.  
He is still gentle and soft to his parents, he’s their loving son who is still small enough for his mother to pick up and adore. He is kind to his family, he loves them greatly. He’d give up even his soul to see them smile.

But it does work.  
It works, his anger keeps people away.  
It keeps everyone one away.  
He grows to hate loneliness very much.  
Very much indeed.


	2. Monster Stories - Iza

Iza grows up on tales of the horrible creatures that inhabit the mountain. Stories of monsters that rip flesh from bone, monsters without emotion and without morals. They are common tales around the Harvest continent. People fear the mountains and those who hide up in the endless blizzard.  
And she, just like everyone else, believes them without issue. There is no one to tell her any different, of what humans did to them in a time long before her.

Her teacher loves to tell the tales when the little princess asks about them, he’s always sure to remind her of the horrors they can cause. How magic isn’t natural to humans and therefore cannot be trusted in the slightest.   
Iza is young and knows little about magic beyond this, and she learns to fear what some can wind around their fingers. From fire to lightning she fears creatures who do it easily.

When she is older she and Joshua are separated from the other two she fears him, not that she’d ever admit it, not to him. She fears the knowing look in his eyes, the way he’s too tall for a human, how cold he is. But she says nothing, she can deal with a man who thinks he’s too good for the world, she knows she’s stronger than the frail-looking man, knows she could bash him in with a shield and spike him through with her spear.

When she learns what he is, born of a creature from the mountains. A creature he calls mother and acts as if its anything close to what a mother should be. She doesn’t think a creature she’s been told is brutal should be allowed to have any kind of child, much less a human looking one.  
She feels proper fear for the man now that she knows he could burn them all if he pleased, slaughter the three of them without a worry.

She grips her guard's arm with a tightness that displays her fear. Nika is gentle with the return hold, trying to keep her calm as best she can.

She fears him for a long while, not trusting him in the slightest, the black blood he bleeds makes her prickle like a frightened cat.  
It’s not until they both nearly die in a raging river that she comes to see him as a friend rather than the man that pissed her off and made her feel fear. They both learned how to trust each other that they could be vulnerable to each other. Teases and shoves more comfortable than the spat words of venom they’d shared before.

Iza thinks of the stores she’d been told by those around her as a child, and then on what Joshua tells them and she can’t help but wonder why she’d been told twisted things.  
Joshua spoke of his people with fondness, speaking on their habit of twining tails and knocking horns, not of murder and slaughter. No, never of the things her family, her teachers, her people, would have led her to believe.

Iza grew on stories of horrid beasts.  
She learns through her journey with three vastly different people that monsters could be the creatures she’d grown up hearing about, or they could be people gone too far with their ideals.  
She knows then that she grew up hearing monster stories from monsters themselves. Men and women with ideals they wished to spread to younger generations.


	3. Things That Stayed the Same - Iza/Nika

There were a lot of things about Nika that hadn’t changed since she was young, Iza thought.

Joshua and Brand had left to go find or fix something she really couldn’t bring herself to care about at all, and that left the two women plenty of time to simply lounge.  
And Iza time to think on aspects of her girlfriend. How could she not when they were lazing so comfortably?

Her fingers brushed gently over the deep scars on Nika’s face, the ones from before they’d even met. Nika couldn’t recall what had given her the wounds that ended up permanent markings.  
It made Iza angry to know someone had both injured her girlfriend and a child. Before they’d met and before Nika could recall.

There were many things Nika had held onto from when they were younger.

She still squeezed her eyes shut in focus when her stutters and mix-ups took over her words and she needed to rework the structure. She’d still squeeze her hands in her bowed head when trying to explain something she found difficult to articulate.  
Some were held onto because they’d been literally beaten into her, the knight that had trained her had not been kind. A rat, filth, a creature he’d felt unworthy of even knowing Iza, he’d beaten habits and ticks into her that she’d never properly worked out.

She hated that she’d never noticed what he’d done to her.

Nika made a small noise, laying her hand over Iza’s, squeezing her fingers gently.

Not all things were bad.  
She retained that look of complete and utter adoration for when she saw cats, always leaving their side to feed, pat, and play with the felines the second she was given the chance.  
While not necessarily something that Nika probably cared much about Iza was incredibly happy that the taller woman had kept her habit of picking her up when she slowed.   
Though it was mostly selfishness and laziness, along with being able to see the absolutely pissed off look Joshua gave her over Nika’s shoulder.

Iza couldn’t help but laugh, startling Nika out of her near sleep.  
She rolled them over to lay comfortably against Nika’s chest, humming as she brushed her fingers through Nika’s hair, pulling it from the tail it was held in.

When Nika was young and Iza first brought her back to the castle she’d been a filthy mess, blotched in black dirt that took hours to clean fully.  
She hadn’t really understood them, speaking fractured words from a kingdom over the seas.  
She learned, but even now, in the present, she’d struggle for more complex words sometimes. Though Iza felt that more a personal thing rather than her language teachings.

Nika had also been terribly sick from having eaten rats, the cat keeping her fed must have caught one to share.  
It had frightened Iza much the same as seeing her go off to battle. A young Iza had understood that death was possible, but stubbornly, and selfishly, told Nika to get better every day.  
She wouldn’t admit she’d cried in her bed the first few nights Nika had been absent from their bed.  
Even now she worried greatly when Nika got ill, a small cough or sniffle always made her worry that it would be bad, never really was, the woman was quite good at staying healthy after the rats.

Nika whined when Iza pulled her hair, forcing a knot free with her fingers.

Nika had also, annoyingly, kept the habit of not being the most on top of keeping herself completely clean.  
Maybe it was just a knight thing? She knew many of the men Nika had fought beside were quite the unsavory kind.  
Iza frowned, they’d need to take a bath.

Iza could easily recall the wonder and absolute happiness in Nika’s eyes the first time she was given a bath purely for pleasure. She seemed near fascinated by the warm water they spent what felt like forever in.  
Not that Iza really knew how she’d felt at the time, she still couldn’t speak their language fluently enough to say so. And Iza hadn’t felt like spending hours trying to help her figure out the words.

“We should have a bath, make Joshua heat one up for us.”  
Nika hummed, hands trailing up her back, “that sounds- I mean, um, uh. That sounds nice.”  
Her fingers had dug into Iza’s back as she tried to figure out the words, though struggled over herself.

Apparently, the inn's beds were horrible to sleep on, if Joshua’s inability to shut up about them told her anything.  
She couldn’t say much herself, spending most nights curled up more so on Nika rather than their shared bed. She would admit they were dreadfully small, certainly not made for two.  
The habit of pretty much laying on top of her had come from after the rat incident, she’d been so happy she’d cried and hadn’t let Nika go all night. Clutching her clothes, she’d managed to lay on top of her to keep her there.

“We could really piss Josh off if we screwed with his coat,” she grinned, lazily leaning up to kiss Nika’s jaw, as if that would persuade her.  
“N-No! He’d be- He’d be really angry…” Nika huffed, nuzzling the top of Iza’s head.  
“Mm, I guess, I don’t want his pissed off voice to be what I fall asleep too. And Brand would be upset too.”  
“For a princess, your words are, uhh, are very f-filthy.”

Iza couldn’t help but grin and settle back down.  
“Oh but I’m a criminal on the run now! I have to speak the part!”  
Nika huffed against her hair again, pressing a soft kiss on her head.

Nika had certainly grown up a lot, but she was still apprehensive about the idea of causing a little mischief among their friends. Though she did still turn a blind eye, or even participate if the stars were right, when it was someone they didn’t quite know.

Nika’s fingers brushed through her hair and Iza sighed.  
She certainly still knew how to settle her down.

“Don’t forget the bath…”  
“O-Of course not.”

Joshua and Brand could be hours away for all she knew, so what was the harm in a little nap after quite the though filled layabout?  
They’d all grown up quite a bit, but something about Iza that never changed was her desire to laze about as long as possible.  
And Nika had yet to grow out of indulging her.


End file.
